Build Your Message Team Part Two—Groundwork

Training your staff and leadership is a high-impact, low-investment marketing strategy for every nonprofit, but one that’s frequently overlooked. It’s the ultimate low-hanging fruit for nonprofits like yours.

The following groundwork sets the stage for sure success:

1. Ensure your message platform is clear and relevant. You may have been using these messages for a few years, or they may be new.

If you’ve done it right, you’ve sourced the insights of your colleagues and leadership in developing these messages and nurtured their understanding of, and buy-in to, the process along the way.

2. Secure leadership buy in by sharing the value of your all-org message team

Position the message team as a program, not a one-off; a way of doing business, not a band-aid. If you (or your bosses) see training as one-time or finite, results will be equally limited (but that may be the way you have to start).

Be aware that this strategy is likely to be a significant cultural shift (tearing down formal or unspoken silos with your organization), and that the transition in full may take some time.

Open the conversation by sharing your vision, then emphasize these immediate benefits and longer-term gains:

Benefit:Greater accuracy and consistency of messages conveyed in conversations and communications across audiences and programs

Gain: Clearer, quicker connections with more of your target audiences

Gain: Increased likelihood of motivating the actions you need

Benefit: Improved understanding of organization goals and priorities across the organization

Benefit:Enhanced ability to harvest and share relevant information and feedback with the right colleagues across the organization—on programs, audiences preferences and values, and more

3. Introduce the concept to your colleagues: It’s always best to start dripping an idea like this out in casual hallway or drop-by conversations (or the virtual equivalent). You’ll learn what resonates with your colleagues and what doesn’t, so you can fine tune before rolling the program out more broadly.

Request their help (attention, time and effort) in strengthening conversations and communications

Outline their potential impact as organizational messengers

Calm their qualms by sharing your realistic expectations about how much extra time and effort this will take. Note: In most cases, your colleagues already having the conversations, and becoming a skilled messenger will help them do so more confidently, quickly and effectively.

Build confidence and interest with a brief overview of how you’ll help them prepare via training, practice and feedback.

Include the message platform and some context on why and when the messages were developed, how they connect with each target audience, and how they differentiate your nonprofit from organizations competing for attention and action.

Also share an accessible one-page summary of your overall marketing strategy that shows at a glance how messaging fits in. It’s hard to be an effective messenger without an understanding of the larger framework.